Former Newcastle co-owner Ghodoussi ‘VIP visitors at Spurs’

Former Newcastle co-owner Mehrdad Ghodoussi was spotted at Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday as a VIP guest of Daniel Levy.

The visit to Spurs comes amid speculation Ghodoussi and wife Amanda Staveley, who are also business partners, could be set to invest in the north London club alongside other Middle Eastern backers.

The British business executive, 51, reportedly wants to buy a stake in Tottenham and is being backed by ‘serious money from a funding team of individuals, which includes some from the Middle East’. She was not at Spurs’ game against Brentford on Saturday.

The Yorkshire-born businesswoman led efforts to acquire the Tyneside club back in 2021, as part of Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund’s (PIF), efforts to gain a footing in European football.

She and her husband exited the club in July, after executives decided to take the club in a new direction.

Merhdad Ghodoussi was spotted at Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday (pictured with wife Amanda Staveley at a friendly in June)

Former Newcastle co-owner Amanda Staveley is reportedly eyeing up a move to invest in a new Premier League club

Staveley had initially helped broker the landmark £305million Saudi-backed takeover of Newcastle back in 2021 

Staveley admitted that she was ‘devastated’ but ‘didn’t want to get in Newcastle’s way’ after she and Ghodoussi sold their six per cent stake in the Magpies to the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund (PIF) and the Reuben family in July, after three years at the helm.

The pair had initially helped broker the landmark £305million Saudi-backed takeover of Newcastle back in 2021, which ended Mike Ashley’s unpopular 14-year reign at the club.

Staveley has now reportedly set up a ‘fresh’ consortium of investors and ‘hopes to take an initial stake in Spurs’.

Forbes state that Spurs are currently valued at around £2.42billion ($3.2bn). Should Staveley wish to purchase a 25 per cent stake in the club it would cost approximately £605m. The 51-year-old has reportedly already raised £500m through her investment fund PCP Capital Partners.

The outlet adds that the investors will subsequently look to increase their stake in the north London outfit.

Tottenham were purchased by ENIC Group (English National Investment Company), in 2001, with Joe Lewis’s family trust becoming the club’s new majority owners.

Tottenham were purchased by ENIC Group (English National Investment Company), in 2001, with chairman Daniel Levy taking control of the day-to-day operations at the club 

In 2023, Lewis was removed as ‘a person with significant control of the club’ following a ‘reorganisation of the Lewis Family Trust’. It came after Lewis had been charged with 19 counts of insider trading, claims which he pleaded guilty to in a US Court earlier this year.

Lewis had previously entrusted Tottenham chairman Daniel Levy with the daily operations of the club, who holds a 29.88 per cent stake in ENIC, along with other members of his family.

In April, Levy confirmed that Spurs were looking for new investors, with Mail Sport having previously revealed that the chairman was open to selling a stake in the club.